Non-Farm Payrolls 244k

There’s nothing not to like here, these numbers come despite hyperbolic gas prices and hideously wet weather.  It ain’t great and in the context of trillions of dollars thrown at the economy it’s kind of embarrassing…but hey, a little bit of progress is better than backsliding.

From the AP via Yahoo:

Companies are hiring workers at the fastest pace in five years, surprising economists with the number of new jobs created.

The report pushed stock futures higher in pre-market trading.

The economy added 244,000 jobs overall last month, well above the 185,000 new jobs that analysts had predicted, the Labor Department reported.

Private employers created 268,000 jobs — the most since February 2006, the report said.

And as has been the trend of late, ADP was a very poor indicator for today’s actual BLS stats.